Moto GP

Moto GP
Review PSP
Sony Entertainment

Driving fast on bikes is cool as long as you're doing it in a professionally controlled environment with high quality leathers, ok kids? Mot GP for the PSP successfully captures the frightening acceleration of hugely powerful motorbikes and proves just what an amazingly exciting motor sport the real thing is.

With loving attention paid to detail on the bike livery and the track side furniture Moto GP delivers an experience with a real flavour of authenticity and gives Moto GP fanatics the chance to train spot the sights they've come to know watching the real thing.

Speed is perfectly captured in game and the graphics remain crisp throughout with both bike and rider modelled and animated with style. The sense of shifting weight and the general gravity handling whilst racing and when crashing give the convincing impression of the sheer heftiness of the bikes involved. Racing in first person view is actually terrifying, I felt the hairs on my neck stand up and I managed two full laps without breathing as I creamed my way though the curves.

The game offers arcade and career modes so you can jump in for a quick fix or settle in for the real thing. Moto GP being an official license means that all the great names are involved so you can obsess over beating them and winning the championship.

On the minus side it still shocks me that game designers over look the natural strengths of the PSP as a platform. Why is there not a control configuration that allows me to use the shoulder buttons to lean the bike to the left and to the right? As riding is largely just a case of leaning one way or the other it seems blindingly obvious to employ huge left and right control inputs instead of struggling with the fiddly analogue stick or the endless tapping the D-pad that the games dynamics demand you make?

Overall though the game is a fantastic fix for any Moto GP fan or speed head of any denomination. Fast, well balanced and good-looking.

7 out of 10